WFPDB: European Plate Archives

The Wide-Field Plate Database (WFPDB) gives an inventory of all wide-field (>~ 1 sq. deg) photographic observations archived in astronomical institutions over the world. So it facilitates and stimulates their use and preservation as a valuable source of information for future investigations in astronomy. At present WFPDB manages plate-index information for 25% of all existing plates providing on-line access from Sofia (http://www.skyarchive.org/search) and in CDS, Strasbourg. Here we present the new development of WFPDB as an instrument for searching of long term brightness variations of different sky objects stressing on the European photographic plate collections (from existing 2 million wide-field plates more than 55% are in Europe: Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Czech Republic, etc.). We comment examples of digitization (with flatbed scanners) of the European plate archives in Sonneberg, Pulkovo, Asiago, Byurakan, Bamberg, etc. and virtual links of WFPDB with European AVO, ADS, IBVS.